Hey students: snitch on pirates, earn $26K a year

It's no secret that students tend to like consuming illegal content a little …

Movie studios spying on P2P networks is a phenomenon most users suspect occurs, but have never really seen proof of. Until now, that is—Warner Bros. in the UK has published a job listing for an intern to dig through known piracy mediums in order to "gather information" and report back to the studio. For £17,500 (or US$26,000) per year, this internship sounds like the perfect opportunity for a student to learn about the ins and outs of copyright—and possibly get ostracized by content-lovin' peers.

According to the job listing (PDF) taken from the University of Manchester (first posted by TorrentFreak), the year-long internship would involve combing IRC networks, forums, and other P2P mediums for Warner Bros. and NBCU content. The goal would be to find new networks and private filesharing sites for informational purposes, but that's not all. Warner also wants the intern to be able to develop bots to scan the Internet for links, send infringement notices, perform "trap purchases of pirated product," and collect "intelligence" on pirate activities.

The listing doesn't seem to imply that the company expects interns to turn in specific individuals, but who really knows what Warner expects when it says to "gather information on pirate sites, pirate groups and other pirate activities." It also makes us wonder how Warner plans to protect itself from spies from the outside—that is, members of the "pirate" community who want to learn more about the company's anti-piracy practices. After all, TorrentFreak is already encouraging its readers to apply for the internship so they can provide updates on Warner's efforts.

We reached out to Warner for answers to these questions, but did not hear back by publication time.

Warner Bros. has been in the news more and more lately for its assertive moves in the movie rental space. After talking both Netflix and Redbox into delaying the DVD release of Warner's titles for 28 days after they hit the streets, the studio promptly turned around and gave same-day release rights to Blockbuster. It's clear that the company is still trying to keep the dying DVD sales market alive, and its online anti-piracy efforts are intended to bolster this strategy.

The listing doesn't seem to imply that the company expects interns to turn in specific individuals, but who really knows what Warner expects when it says to "gather information on pirate sites, pirate groups and other pirate activities."

So you explicitly state the listing doesn't imply that, but you make that the title of the article anyway as if it's fact? That's cool...

Students are desperate for jobs/internships - but not THAT desperate. Considering the work involved and the pay on offer, I don't think many would jump at this offer. Unless they want to act as a double agent of course

So that movie you downloaded via P2P last year? It's value isn't based on the $15.99 cost of the DVD or even the $25.99 cost of the Blu-Ray disc. It's based on the $3.99/day rental fee for the first day, then a late fee of $6.99/day for each day after that, so when the court uses the standard multiplier, instead of 6 or 7 figure penalties, it's up to 7 or 8 figure penalties...

Seems like the market working... Aren't there similar schemes for white collar crimes? Or the whole plea bargaining scheme of US criminal law - snitching is encouraged to get charged with less serious crimes and consequently get a lighter sentence.

I'd bet any snitch that was discovered would be the focus of many pranks; however, whether they'd be life-threatening would depend on whether any legal action comes from the collected data, and whether the snitch would have to publicly testify in any way.

I guess it depends on who you work for and how valued you skills are, and how much experience you have. Me and a couple friends are all in the same major (Networking & Information Systems), one of my friends only make $11 an hour but i guess thats because he works for the computer department at college. My other friend makes $13 an hour at some company down in jersey. Both are smart but have little to no experience with Linux and other OS's, whereas i put down i know *BSD, Backtrack, and most Linux distros and can set them up do what would be required at my job.

Back the early 90s when I was a co-op student studying at University of Waterloo in Comp Eng, pay scales for students were published as "avg. of $xxx/week". I started off as a 1st year student (8 months of studying) making $435/week for IBM. By 5th and 6th workterms (the model is 8 study semesters, 6 work semesters, no summer breaks), it could get close to $700/week. That was 1992-1993.

Just checked: it's increased some. Some interns (actuarial science) apparently get as much as $29/hour. Average for 4th year students: low $20s/hour.

Traitors !!! Scumbag Rat Frakkers !!!!I have a big dislike for snitches.20 years ago I was arrested for drugs becuase of a wire wearing snitch and I got a nice 7 years worth of a sentence and all on one 1/8 ounce sale of coke.I got a nice big sentence because I did not roll on my mates.

What a lot of hyperbole for what is essentially a research position. What are you guys proposing, that content producers should simply ignore the piracy out there and pretend it dosen't exist? Read the description again, its basically a study job about means of active piracy and building some tracking software. They aren't 'snitching' on their peers or anything of that nature.

Traitors !!! Scumbag Rat Frakkers !!!!I have a big dislike for snitches.20 years ago I was arrested for drugs becuase of a wire wearing snitch and I got a nice 7 years worth of a sentence and all on one 1/8 ounce sale of coke.I got a nice big sentence because I did not roll on my mates.

Anyone who takes this job is a piece of krap.

That sucks so much dude! You got that much time for an 8-ball? Where the hell do you live man?